


You know what you need?

by AdeleDazeem



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Fluff, Homemade Haircuts, Jigsaw Puzzles, also: smut, and they were quarantine roommates, brief discussions of the politics of gender performance, is it 'alternate universe' if it's OUR universe?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:08:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24764389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdeleDazeem/pseuds/AdeleDazeem
Summary: “It’s quarantine, Hill,” Natasha says, leaning her head back on the couch. “Not the waiting room of a 1950’s maternity ward. Quit with the pacing.”
Relationships: Maria Hill/Natasha Romanov
Comments: 18
Kudos: 207





	You know what you need?

“This is worse than Füzuli.”

“There’s no way this is worse than Füzuli.”

“Funny,” Hill says, shooting the other woman an icy look. “I don’t remember you being there.”

“Funny,” Natasha replies, “I don’t remember you being this melodramatic. And,” she adds. “I read the reports. Another 72 hours of no contact and I was going in.”

Hill snorts. Keeps pacing. 

“It’s quarantine, Hill,” Natasha says, leaning her head back on the couch. “Not the waiting room of a 1950’s maternity ward. Quit with the pacing.” 

“I’m going to go work out,” Maria says, pacing right into the gym the next room over. She just finished working out, not 45 minutes ago. Her hair is still wet from her post-exercise shower even. 

Natasha doesn’t say anything. She knows when someone needs to cool off.

This is day two of quarantine. 

xx

“We should have waited. _I_ should have waited.”

“And then what? You’d be sick too? How does that help anyone?” Natasha asks.

“How does being locked in this high tech suite help anyone?”

Natasha looks at her. Reads between the lines of Hill’s clipped sentences, her tense shoulders, the angle of her jaw. 

“He’ll be ok, Hill,” Nat says in a softer tone. “Bruce’s doing everything he can to find a cure. Stark kitted out that medical suite to accommodate him especially. I even hear Cap reads him the newspapers.”

“Yeah. And what am I doing?” Hill throws her hands up in the air. “I’m the fucking deputy director, his _second_ , and what am I doing?”

“You’re doing exactly what you need to be doing.”

“Slowly going crazy in a locked box?” Hill asks incredulously. “While Fury is on a ventilator and I can’t even fucking be there to tell him ‘I told you so.’ That he should have just gotten on the fucking quinjet and come back with us?”

There’s an edge to Hill’s voice now. It’s sharp, yes, but dangerously brittle. Like over-tempered steel. It’s not something Natasha’s ever heard from the other agent. Even during the shitstorm that was Sokovia, her voice never wavered from an authoritative command. She’s used to Hill being firm and in control. 

“You can tell him once this is over,” Natasha says neutrally, careful not to let her own voice tip over into patronizing, or worse: comforting. “He’ll be ok.”

“He better be,” Hill says darkly.

Natasha leaves her be. She knows when someone needs space. 

This is day five.

xx

Day six, Hill throws a 25 kilogram weight at the TV in the gym. 

Thankfully, Tony has learned from his myriad of explosive disasters, and the glass on the television is designed to withstand anything short of the helicarrier landing onto it. The plate bounces off without a scratch.

“Feel better?” Natsha asks from the mat where she’d been doing sit-ups.

Hill doesn’t answer. Instead says, “I can’t take any more of these news updates. This is worse than New York. The _alien_ New York. Not the New York before Stark got those masks and air filters deployed.”

Natasha doesn’t say anything for a minute. Just watches Hill rub the back of her neck, knuckles white and stark next to the dark brown of her hair, twisted back in a sweaty bun. “Then turn it off,” Natasha says finally. 

“I’m not going to hide my head in the sand, Romanov.”

“No,” Nat scoffs to herself and goes back to her reps, “just apparently kick it like a small child. 

Hill jerks around to look at her. It’s an improvement from glaring at the talking heads citing today’s death toll, though it’s no less injurious in its intensity. “What did you say?”

“I said, do you want to try the 50?” Natasha says louder, sitting up fully now. She lifts her chin in the direction of the abandoned weight bench where the rest of the plates are. “The big guy always feels a little better after throwing some heavy shit around.”

Hill looks at her for a count, eyes cold like the winters of Nat’s childhood. “I’m not Banner,” she says, biting each word off at the quick.

“No,” Natasha tilts her head meaningfully, returns the look. “You sure aren’t.”

Hill straightens up like Natasha just roundhoused her in the face. She picks up the 25 from where it’s laying on the floor, racks it, and stiffly walks out of the room without another word. 

Natasha doesn’t see her for the rest of the day.

xx 

It’s the morning of day seven and HIll is sitting at the kitchen table when Natasha wakes up. Her posture is just as straight as it was yesterday when she left the work out room, but as Natasha walks past to get coffee she sees a slightly sheepish tilt to her head. 

That and a mug already laid out for her. It’s the hideous commemorative edition Avengers one some quick-on-its-feet comic book company rolled out after NY. One of the techs must have left it in here as a joke. Natasha’s used it every day since the door swung shut and bio sealed them in here. 

“I’m sorry,” Hill says to the mug as Natasha picks it up and pours her coffee. 

“I know,” Natasha says. She sits down at the table and blows on the steaming drink, waits.

“I just,” Hill runs a hand through her hair, heedless of the fact it's in a bun. “I’m not used to sitting back and not doing something. Not helping.”

“You are helping.”

“It doesn’t feel like it,” Hill says, looking at Natasha beseechingly for a moment before looking back down at her fists on the table.

Natasha takes a moment. “I think you’ve been bashing heads in too long,” she says. “Helping doesn’t always look like boots on the ground and big guns.”

Hill’s lips twist.

Natasha doesn’t reach for Hill’s hand across the table, but, just as crazy, she does find herself wanting to. “You know what you need?” she asks, taking the first sip of coffee. 

Hill’s eyes cut to the woman sitting across from her. “If you say meditation, I’m throwing _you_ at the weight room wall.”

Natasha grins at the tone, the threat’s been worn down to the point of almost being deadpan. “I'd love to see you try. But, no.” Natasha clears her throat and adopts a solemn tone. “What you need is puzzles.”

“Puzzles?”

“Yes.” 

“As in…” Hill’s brow knits. “Jigsaw puzzles?”

Natsha nods gravely, takes another sip of her coffee. 

“You know,” Hill begins thoughtfully. “I haven’t seen a jigsaw puzzle since I visited my Nona in Florida.” 

“Your Nona sounds like my kind of lady,” Natasha says. “It’s a shame she isn’t stuck in here with me instead.”

That gets Natasha a smile. “A shame indeed. Ok,” she says, meeting Natasha’s eyes across the table. “Puzzles.”

xx

Midnight of day eight finds them both bent over the same kitchen table. 

“I don’t understand.”

Natasha grunts, but doesn’t look up from what she’s doing. 

“The box was sealed. It’s only ever been opened /here/ on this exact table.” The woman runs a hand through her hair, messing up the military lines of her bun. She presses her closed fist to her mouth and stares hard at the table. “I just don’t understand where this piece could have gone.”

“It’s here somewhere,” Natasha says soothingly from where she is working on fitting together the black cat playing with the yellow ball of twine. Is it twine or yarn? She looks closer at the painting printed on the box and sighs. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to tell from the weave detail provided. 

“Easy for you to say, you haven’t looked up from the black and yellow pieces in half an hour!” Maria (because she’s Maria now, you can’t work on a kitten puzzle with someone and continue to call them by their last name, this kind of thing changes people) braces her hands on the table and leans closer to the hundreds of prices strewn across its surface, scowling at them like Nat’s seen her do so many times at unfavorable battle plans.

Here, piecing together a jigsaw puzzle in the middle of the night, Maria is starting to look more like the woman Natasha knows and works with. The frantic, angry energy that’s been building the last few days is gone. Maria seems to be handling their situation better now that she has a task. Even if it is just putting together a silly puzzle.

“Do you want to switch?” Nat offers, still not looking up. She has just a few pieces left. She can taste victory on the wind.

“And admit defeat?” Maria scoffs disbelievingly.

“You’re right, what was I thinking.” She says absentmindedly, before popping a particularly tricky, completely black piece in place. She does a little seated victory dance, then looks up in time to catch the other woman’s eyes on her. Natasha leans back and looks across at her. “What does it look like?”

Maria responds immediately, clearly ready and waiting for Natasha's assistance. “It should be dark red with a little bit of pink on one end. It’s part of this one’s nose. See? Right where it meets the red ball of yarn.”

Oh, so it is yarn. Natasha accepts this and looks at the pieces spread out between them. “Little bit of black maybe?”

“Maybe.” Maria reaches over and studies the box critically. “I haven’t gotten to that side of it so maybe. Probably.”

“You mean… like this one?” Natasha leans over and points to a piece resting immediately beside Maria’s left elbow. 

Hill whoops. “Yes!” She slots the piece into place looking for the world like she just got a perfect score at the firing range. She looks up at Natasha, a full smile stretched across her face and says, presumably without thinking, “I could kiss you.”

If Natasha were anyone else she might have blushed; it’s not every day someone gets the full force of a genuine Maria Hill smile turned on them — Natasha finds it feels a little like the first sunny day of spring. Luckily for everyone involved, however, she’s not anyone else. So she just grins a little and says, “Maybe later, soldier,” and goes back to her side of the puzzle. “Let's get these cats sorted first.”

“Seems a little out of order, but ok,” Maria mutters from across the table.

It's so unexpected it pulls a laugh out of Natasha. Maria doesn’t look up, just goes back to her work area. But Natasha notes the pleased smile, the fascinatingly pretty flush playing across her cheeks. She notes these things and files them away for further review at a later date. 

But first. These kittens aren’t going to work themselves.

xx 

It’s a little over 10 hours later and the puzzle is finished and Maria has apparently decided to celebrate by going for a casual half marathon jog on the treadmill. 

Natasha looks up from the novel she’s reading on the couch as the other woman exits the workout room. Dark, damp hair is stuck to her face and her cheeks are flushed that pretty shade again, but otherwise from the looks of it she might have just stepped out of a yoga class, her breathing is so unbothered. Maria pushes her bangs off her face and surprises Natasha with a grin as she heads to the kitchen for a water bottle. 

Natasha twists around in her seat to watch Maria over the back of the couch. Maria’s hair has fallen down from its characteristic bun and she holds it off the back of her neck as she digs through the fridge. 

“You know what you need?” Natasha finds herself asking again.

“More puzzles?” Maria asks, perking up in an adorable way that Maria would no doubt later deny.

Natasha snorts. “Maybe. But also. A haircut.” 

Maria takes a hearty swig from her water and raises an eyebrow. “I have a haircut, Romanov.”

“Not one that suits you.”

Maria tilts her head to one side. Assesses the other woman. “And how do you know what would suit me?”

There’s a challenge there, but it’s more lighthearted than aggressive. The amused quirk at the corner of her lips, the curious gleam in her eyes tell Natasha Maria isn’t offended. 

Nat raises her chin: challenge accepted. “Haven’t you heard,” she says, theatrically. “I’m an international woman of mystery. Disguises are par for the course. Part of that is finding what suits a person. What suits their face. What they’re going for.” 

“Then how do you know this haircut doesn’t suit the look I’m going for?”

“Is the look you’re going for one you want or one you feel obligated to adhere to?”

Maria sidesteps that question smoothly - those public relations courses Pepper has been giving her must be paying off - and lobs a question back. “What look do you think I’d want, then?”

“Something smart, shorter. That wouldn’t get in your way and that you wouldn’t have to worry about pulling back every time you got into a tight situation.” Natasha looks at the other woman appraisingly, tilts her head, before adding, “Maybe a little longer on top, though. So you could quaff it back for press conferences or public appearances.”

Hill studies her for a long moment, smile still playing coyly at her lips, as she fingers absently with the screw top of her water bottle down by her side. “Did Danvers put you up to this?”

Nat laughs. “No.”

Maria grins, looks down at her water bottle, then back up, pointedly making eye contact. There’s more challenge this time, certainly. Her grin is harder at its edge, like she expects a fight, when she asks, “You don’t think that would look a little too butch?”

A beat. Natasha keeps the comprehension from dawning across her face. “Would it matter?” she returns.

Maria chews on that question for a moment, mulls it over like it’s never crossed her mind exactly like that. “Not to me. But to some people, yes. It’s hard enough being a woman in charge in a predominantly masculine field. It’s different for me than for you.

“Is it?”

Maria tilts her head. “I said different, not harder.”

Nat lets that stand. She can imagine how Maria’s gender presentation could make some people uncomfortable. Imagines that her decision to not wear makeup and tight dresses has put a very specific target on her back, different from the one Natasha’s purposeful, inverse choice has placed on hers. 

“People see what they want, Maria.” She says not unkindly. “Might as well make it something you want if you can help it.”

Hill hums at that. She takes another swig, then smiles, an obvious attempt to dispel some of the heaviness that’s snuck into their quarters. “Maybe once we’re out of here,” she says. “When we can get within six feet of people without having the National Guard or the kid called in on us, I’ll go see about getting it done.” 

And that would be that, conversation over as Maria heads to her room, except that Natasha opens her mouth again and says, “Or I could do it now. If you want.”

That pulls Hill up short. And for a moment, it’s hard to tell who is more surprised by the suggestion. “You?” 

“I don’t see another person in this quarantine suite.” Nat looks around the room. “Do you?”

“What’s that saying? About girls going through traumatic events and giving themselves ill-advised bangs?” Maria says, dark eyebrow raised.

Natasha huffs. “One, you already have bangs. And two, as we’ve just established I am an expert, so I’d hardly call this ill-advised.”

“Have you ever done this before?”

“I cut Clint’s hair plenty of times before he started having Laura do it.”

Maria just about spits out the drink of water she’d been taking. “Barton? Really?” She looks suitably scandalized. “That isn’t exactly reassuring, Natasha.”

Nat waives it away. “Oh hush, his style preferences have nothing to do with my tastes and do not reflect my skills.”

“You’re serious.”

“If you want me to be.”

There’s a look, for just a moment that flashes across Maria’s eyes, but then it’s gone and Hill is turning and walking away. 

“So that’s a no?” Natasha calls after her.

“No,” Maria tosses back over her shoulder, confusing Natasha for a moment before she continues. “Pretty sure it’s better to wet the hair before cutting it. Figured might be polite to wash it as well.” Then the bathroom door is shutting and Natasha lets herself sit for a minute, thinking about what she has just agreed to do.

xx

There’s an electric razor under the sink in the bathroom (no doubt originally placed there when they assumed Fury would be in here quarantined with them). Maria brings it and a clean, dry towel back with her after she finishes showering. Natasha grabs the scissors from the kitchen drawer and gives them an experimental snip. 

“Do you want me to get a sharpener?” Maria offers, watching the other woman. And of course, she has a knife sharpener. They’re on medical quarantine and Natasha shouldn’t be surprised, but she can’t help the little smile that tugs at her lips.

“Nah, I think these will do.”

Maria nods agreeably. “Where do you want me?”

“I was thinking the kitchen. It’ll be easier to sweep up the trimmings in here.”

“Good thinking,” Maria says, dragging one of the chairs away from the table and sitting down in it. 

Natasha helps her drape the towel over her shoulders. “Last chance to back out,” she says carefully pulling Maria’s wet, dark hair out from underneath the towel. It’s softer than Nat imagined it would be.

“Backing out, isn’t really my thing,” Maria says in a playfully cocky way that makes Natasha wish she was in front of the other woman to see the look on her face. 

“I’ll remember that the next time you insist on driving the surveillance van.”

Maria laughs, Nat leans forward, makes the first cut, and then there’s no turning back.

It takes a while, longer than Clint’s ever did, but Maria sits patiently. She doesn’t fidget, which is nice, and only moves when Natasha asks her to. 

Natasha never realized how intimate an act this is. With Clint it was all jokes and sarcasm and chiding him to _please for the love of God, stop moving or else you’re going to lose an ear (regardless of how useless it may or may not be)_. But here, in the quiet kitchen of their little apartment, with only Maria’s steady breathing and the occasional order from Natasha, it’s… It’s different. 

Nat finds herself hyper-aware of every touch of her skin against Marias’s. A brush along the curve of her earlobe. The nape of her neck. Her cheek. She runs her finger through Maria’s hair before cutting off a hank of it, feels every strand as it passes along her fingers. 

This may be the longest amount of time she’s spent in the other woman’s personal space without a training mat or bullet wound being involved. 

At one point, she stands in front of Maria, leaning over to see her bangs, and, without prompting, Maria spreads her knees to allow her to step closer, stand between them if she wants. Natasha has to swallow. 

“Do you want me to lean my head back?” Maria asks. Her eyes are bright and dangerous like a stiletto knife. Nat feels it sharp in her chest. One look and she knows she’s not the only one aware of the tension building between them. 

“Not unless you plan to stay like that until your hair grows back,” Nat says surprisingly smoothly for how dry her mouth has gone. She continues fingering the fringe of hair along the right side of Maria’s face, decidedly not looking at the blue eyes tracking her movements. “The angle would be off. It would fall wrong when your head is even. I just…” She twists a moment, tilts, shakes her head. “Actually. May I?” 

“Whatever you need." 

Natasha smirks, but doesn’t respond to that, even though a suggestive retort is on the tip of her tongue. She lifts her knee and slowly rests it on the chair, right at the vee of Maria’s legs. 

Maria lifts an eyebrow but doesn’t object. “Better?” She asks. 

“Getting there.”

Natasha carefully makes a few more trims and then leans back. She takes Maria’s chin in her hand and turns her head this way and that, studying her handiwork. “Acceptable?” Maria asks, jaw flexing under Natasha’s fingers as she forms the word. 

“More than,” Natasha smiles. She’ll need a real razor, not the one they have, to tighten things up. But it still looks pretty good if she says so herself. That might just be the model, though. “Want me to grab you a mirror?” 

“Nah. The look you’re giving me is proof enough.”

There’s a long moment between them, loaded like a gun, as they watch one another. Maria hasn't moved, sits stock-still, one hand flat on her thighs, the other holding the towel closed around her shoulders. Natasha’s knee is still resting on the chair. Her hand slides up from Maria’s chin, now stops at the strong line of her jaw where it curves to her ear. 

She strokes her thumb experimentally along the soft skin of her cheek. Watches, enrapt, as Maria’s lips part, but her gaze remains steady.

From this proximity, she can see a few slivers of trimmed hair at the corner of Maria’s cheek, just south of her surprisingly long lashes. She thinks about leaning forward and lightly blowing them off, wonders if Maria’s eyes would slide closed, wonders whose breath would catch first, hers or Maria’s. 

It’s a nice thought. But it doesn’t sound like Maria. Doesn’t sound like them. So, she settles on a different, more direct line of attack.

“How about that kiss now, soldier?”

Maria leans forward and does just that. Her mouth is firm, but not hard, sure, but not presumptuous against Natasha’s. Nat knows the other woman is letting her take the lead, has been letting her since they had coffee at this kitchen table yesterday morning. 

Natasha flexes her fingers, tilts Maria’s head to allow a better angle and _there_ , that’s much better. Natasha takes Maria’s bottom lip between her own, runs her tongue along it and applies just the right amount of pressure to kick things into the next gear.

With that, Maria’s hands finally, finally come to life. One lands on Natasha’s hip, the other on the knee between her thigh. Her palm is hot even through the fabric of Natasha’s yoga pants as it slides up her thigh to grip the side of her leg, kneading the muscle before applying more pressure. 

Natasha isn’t even aware of what’s happening until she’s being settled onto Maria’s lap, thighs slotting into place around Maria’s hips like pieces slotting home. Somewhere in the back of her mind Natasha registers the dull thump of the towel hitting the floor as she dislodges it from Maria’s shoulders running a hand down her neck, fingertips slipping beneath the collar of Maria’s shirt to press at her warm back. 

She grinds experimentally against the flat, firm muscle of Maria’s stomach and is rewarded with a growl low in Maria’s throat that has heat coiling low in Natasha’s belly in response. Before Natasha can push forward again, Maria’s bending her back to lean against the edge of the table, jigsaw masterpiece be damned as she presses her close. 

Nat keeps one hand on her neck, the other on Maria’s cheek, keeping her close. Not that Maria’s going anywhere if the way she’s pulling Natasha to her is anything to go by (like she can’t get her close enough, even with one arm around her waist, the other welded, molten, to her thigh). 

Natasha is pretty sure she’s too old to be this caught up in the feel of another person’s mouth against her own, the heat of another person’s body pressed against her own. Sex is one thing, making out is another. But there’s something about the sure way that Maria’s flexing her fingers against Natasha’s thigh. The focused way she’s licking into Natasha’s mouth. Like there’s nothing else in the world she’d rather be doing at this moment than kissing Natasha in the middle of a hair strewn kitchen. How _present_ she is inside of this moment. 

Maria Hill, Natasha realizes, is a surprisingly good kisser. It’s just the right shade of dirty without edging into sloppy. In this, like she is in all things, Maria is purposeful, patient in a way she hasn’t been the last eight days. She isn’t even moving her hand higher, isn’t angling for more than what Nat is giving her. 

Nat, who is so used to people expecting certain things from her, who, yeah, oftentimes exploits these presumptions to her own benefit, but is aware of them all the same, suddenly has the pleasant realization that Maria is doing no such thing. That Maria would be perfectly fine if Nat were to cut things off right here, at just a heated makeout sesh in the kitchen. And there’s something about that, about the fact that the other woman isn’t expecting _anything_ , that has Natasha wanting to give her _everything_. At least for the next few hours here in this quarantine apartment.

She breaks the kiss to trail her lips along Maria’s jaw. “You know what you need?”

From this close, Maria’s chuckle is warm and low. “If the last two times you’ve asked me that has proven anything, it’s that, no, I do not know what I need.”

“Fast learner,” Natasha replies, barely bothering to lift her lips from Maria’s skin as she forms the words. “No wonder Shield poached you from the military.”

“When they offered me the position, I certainly never thought it’d take me here.”

“Fate is full of surprises.”

“I’m beginning to see that, yes. Now what were you saying it was that I needed?”

“Oh yes,” Natasha pulls back to look the taller woman in the eye. “What you need, soldier, is to take me to bed.”

She’s glad she did too, because she’s rewarded with another one of those full smiles. “Yes, ma’am.”

Maria picks her up like she weighs nothing, which really shouldn’t be a surprise. Natasha knows the other woman is strong, has watched her work out every day since they’ve been in this place, has seen her muscles in action, but there’s something implicitly different about having that strength used _on_ you. Natasha wraps her legs around her hips, rests her arms across the strong, sure line of Maria’s shoulders, as Maria steps carefully over the towel that's fallen forgotten on the floor. 

She sneaks a hand further down the back of Maria’s shirt as she continues working on the warm skin of Maria’s neck. Listens as Maria’s breath comes in harsh gusts as she worries the spot beneath her jaw with blunt teeth. “Fuck,” Maria says, kicking open the door to her room. “You keep doing that and I’m gonna drop you.”

“I trust you,” Natasha says hot against her throat then continues sucking red marks before moving over to her pulse point and starting anew. It’s comforting to feel Maria’s pulse pounding against her lips, when Nat can feel her own throbbing just as hard between her legs.

Maria places her on the bed, then takes a step back to pull off her shirt. “Pants, too,” Natasha instructs as she shimmies out of her own and slides backwards up the made bed (of course it’s made, even in isolation, leave it to Maria to follow protocol). Maria complies, kicks her SHIELD-issued sweatpants to a far corner, before following after her.

Nat lets her settle on top, arching up into the feel of hot skin pressed to hot skin and then Maria’s sliding a sure hand down between them and finds Nat warm and wet. Maria feels the same where she’s pressed against Nat’s thigh. 

Nat meant what she said earlier. Fate is indeed full of surprises. Yet somehow, this feels like the natural progression. Like Natasha running her hands through the freshly shorn hairs on the back of her head and Maria sighing into her mouth in this very particular way as she slip slides slots her fingers right where Nat needs her is the logical next step after jigsaw puzzles and home haircuts. Quarantine is crazy like that, Nat supposes. 

But then Nat doesn’t really care, because her head tips back and she finds herself biting her bottom lip to keep from moaning embarrassingly loud from how good Maria feels sliding into her, because of course Maria Hill fucks just like she kisses.

xx

The next morning, day nine, Nat notes absently, there’s a video conference waiting for them on the coms link in the living room.

Steve’s face fills up the screen as they turn it on, smile so big they can see it through the surgical mask he is wearing.

Fury has turned the corner, he reports. Maria looks like she could fall over with relief. 

“Bruce says we should be able take him off the ventilator in a day or so.”

“Which is good, because it’s been too long since I heard that lazy bastard yell at us,” Stark butts in from his video screen that’s been conferenced in for the update. He looks like he is somewhere in a manufacturing plant, if the commotion and automated assembly lines are anything to go by.

Fury shoots the bird at the camera from over Cap’s shoulder. The familiar gesture warms Natasha to the core.

Stark reasserts himself again, this time directing his offense at herself and Maria, “You guys have been tracking any potential symptoms, haven’t you?”

“Of course,” Maria answers sitting up straighter, back to business. “Nothing’s come up so far.”

“Interesting,” Tony says. “JARVIS noticed an anomaly over the last 18 hours. Both of your heart rates and internal temperatures were raised for an extended period of time that didn’t fit any of your exercise profiles from the past week. So...” He lets the implication hang, raises an eyebrow above those ridiculous tinted shades. 

“Oh,” Natasha says helpfully.

“We were trying something new out,” Maria steps in smoothly. “No reason for concern.”

Rogers is blushing an impressive shade of red that would pair wonderfully with his old uniform. 

“Uh huh. No fever or body aches, then?”

“I mean now that you mention it, Tony,” Natasha says. “I do have a few aches—“

“Oh would you look at that!” Steve interrupts Natasha before she can finish. “It’s Jello time here for Fury and I, so we had better be going! Glad to hear you two are doing, um, so well!”

The call disconnects.

Maria sits back against the couch, smile on her face as she stares at the now blank screen.

“Told you he’d be ok,” Nat says next to her, her hand on the other woman’s knee. 

“You’ve been telling me a lot of things the last week and a half.”

“Didn’t exactly hear you complaining.” 

Maria throws an arm over the back of the couch, rests it just above Nat’s shoulders, not touching, but almost. “You know what _I_ think _you_ need?”

“What?”

“To hack JARVIS and suspend monitors on our vital signs for the next 24 hours.”

“Interesting. And here I was thinking about making it 48.”

“Well,” Maria lets her arm slide onto Nat’s shoulders fully now, unafraid to instigate touching her now that she knows they’re on the same page, ”History shows you do know best.”

**Author's Note:**

> And that’s why you should quarantine, folks!


End file.
